Here’s the deal
After rainy days with temperatures in the 30s and 40s last week, Thursday’s 86-degree, nothing-but-sunshine evening was a blessing.
Many people, including Mexico Town Manager John Madigan, praised Frank Anastasio of Rumford for bringing summer to Mexico that night at the second annual Mexico Cruise-In car and truck show.
Anastasio dreamed up the event last year as a fundraiser for Mexico firefighters trying to buy a six-wheeler for remote rescues, and wheeled out the event again with the Tired Iron Cruizers Car Club.
“Frank, you’ve got it in with ‘the big guy’ upstairs,” Madigan said.
Madigan said Frank told God, “I want summer to start in Mexico, Maine on May 30 at this car show.”
Anastasio simply brushed off the praise but said he’s got special connections with “the big guy.”
Last fall, after delivering a eulogy at a close friend’s funeral, Anastasio suffered a heart attack. He stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating, he said Thursday.
A Rumford Hospital doctor brought him back to life, but then Anastasio said he went into cardiac arrest and “died” twice during the 12-minute trip via LifeFlight helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
Anastasio laughed at Madigan’s praise and said, “John, you don’t realize how this works. I met him last September.”
“That’s right! You did!” Madigan said, suddenly remembering.
“I met him!” Anastasio said.
“You really did!” Madigan said.
“He sent me back to do good things,” Anastasio said.
“And you said, ‘OK, but here’s the deal: May 30th, I want the weather in my favor,'” Madigan said while Anastasio continued laughing heartily.
’64 Chevy
Many people attending Thursday night’s second annual Mexico Cruise-In car and truck show reminisced about vehicles from their youth, including Town Manager John Madigan.
He said he had a ’64 Chevy Impala convertible.
“White interior with red leather seats and a black top,” Madigan said.
“And I’m walking around (at the Mexico show) and I notice that some of them have the gas pedal foot: chrome foot. I had that. I had the little high-beam foot, and I had a suicide knob on my wheel, leather case around it. I had the dice hanging from the mirror! Man, I had it all!”
He said Bruce Farrin, editor from the Rumford Falls Times newspaper, asked him what happened to that car.
“I said that when I was in Vietnam, my brother went to New Hampshire to visit a girlfriend, fell asleep, drove off the road; all of the underneath, gone,” Madigan said of his Impala.
“So I come home (from Vietnam), it’s in my driveway,” he said.
“I pull in one day and there’s a guy that shows up with a truck and backs into the driveway. I say, ‘What are you doing?’ and he says, ‘I’m taking my car,’ and I say, ‘Your car? What are you talking about?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I bought it from your brother for $25.'”
“So that’s what happened to my old car,” Madigan said. “This show brings back a lot of memories.”
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